Spontaneous Sherlock @ Liquid Room

Spontaneous Sherlock makes for an elementary Free Fringe choice

★★★

Review
by Cara McNamara
| 11 Aug 2017

Brits have always been obsessed with detectives. Marple, Poirot, Vera, Bergerac, Luther, Wimsey, Wexford, Cracker, Zen, and a slew of other sleuths so good they named them once. But the daddy of them all is Sherlock. Without Sherlock there would be no Gene Hunt. Which is fitting, because without Edinburgh there would be no Sherlock, nor indeed a Spontaneous Sherlock Company, nor a pocket sized Hunt-esque Lestrade to steal all the best lines.

Spontaneous Sherlock is a lovely, silly way to spend an evening at the Fringe. Four young men in Victorian duds lollop about the stage making up a story based on audience suggestions, this evening’s offering Sherlock Holmes and the case of the Hollow Corpse. Sherlock himself is debonair and nonsensical; Watson, stolid, straight and the ‘butt’ of jokes; Lestrade, the smart arse who picks everyone else up on their mistakes (this is inspired) and there's the floppy haired one, who does...well, everything else.

It’s not mind-blowingly funny, but it’s consistent with smart devices. Get there early, queues are huge.